Edward tore out those pages, set them alight, and watched until they crumbled into ashes.
When he looked up again, he realised that at some point the sky had already darkened. A crimson moon hung overhead, its light spilling down and cloaking the world in a thin, hazy mist.
In this era, gas lamps had only just been invented. Once the sun sank, the world was swallowed by darkness. The streets outside were nearly deserted.
Immersed in such darkness, loneliness pressed in heavier than ever. The calm he had just forced upon himself was pierced through, replaced by a sharp ache.
Grief, for humans, always carried a delay.
When he had first realised he had travelled through time, confusion and uncertainty had outweighed sadness. Then came a whirlwind of busyness that left him no time to dwell on it.
But now, sitting alone in this hollow, empty room…with Lilith and Audrey separated from him by the chasm of centuries, untouchable, unreachable…
Edward finally grasped the reality of it.
An unprecedented sorrow flooded him like a tidal wave, suffocating, crushing, leaving him gasping for air.
Snap.
The fountain pen broke in his hand. Ink spattered across the desk, scattering into deep blotches—stains that stood out sharp and raw, like scars seared into the depths of his soul.
For a long while, he sat frozen.
Then, with a wave of his hand, Edward cleaned the mess, forced himself upright, and shoved the pain down, dragging his thoughts back to order.
Where was he just now?
…Right. Candidates for acting out the Secrets Sorcerer role.
Yes. There was still one person in this era who absolutely couldn't be overlooked—someone Roselle had mentioned in his notes: another "transmigrator" from an even earlier time.
Whether that "senior" was the same person who had later stormed into the Astral Plane in search of Cheek, Roselle had explicitly written that the other still lived.
That meant, at the very least, the two had interacted. Otherwise, how could Roselle have known?
So, if he kept his eyes on Roselle long enough, sooner or later he'd come across that person…
Wait.
Edward froze, his heartbeat suddenly quickening.
Known facts: there existed a transmigrator who had arrived in an earlier timeline. They knew Chinese. They had left behind a diary written in Chinese. The diary was childishly simple, recording trivial daily life, random thoughts, using circles in place of words they couldn't write…clearly the work of a child.
And right now—wasn't there someone who fit that description perfectly?
"Lilith!"
Edward leapt to his feet before he even realised it.
She was a child. Her Chinese was only at an elementary school level. Naturally, her diary would be filled with childishness. She had complained about food being unappetizing, about hating her environment, about being homesick, wanting to return…
She even…had beaten up Cheek!
Edward's chest clenched.
The one who had kicked Cheek around like a ball...was Lilith?!
The one who had handed Cheek potion formulas...was Lilith?!
The one who had charged into the Astral Plane to hunt Cheek down...was Lilith?!
"I'll be waiting for you in the future!"
That final line, spoken by the black-haired girl before they parted, now resurfaced in his mind. So this…was what she had truly meant?
No wonder. No wonder…
Everything suddenly fit together.
No wonder Cheek had suddenly appeared back then, striking at Lilith. So the two of them had already carried grudges from before.
And yet—from the contents of those diary pages—it seemed that later, she and Cheek had gotten along fairly well. So what had happened between them to bring things to such a deadly pass?
What had Lilith gone through in that time?
Betrayal, deception, despair, suffering…perhaps even worse horrors.
At this moment, Edward felt happy, heartbroken, and worried all at once.
He was happy that Lilith had successfully survived from the Fourth Epoch all the way to the present (his future) and had acquired immense power.
He was heartbroken thinking about the countless difficulties and obstacles she must have overcome to get to where she was.
And he was worried that she had charged into the Astral World all alone to hunt down a true god!
After all, the top of the Witch pathway was already occupied by Cheek at Sequence 0. At best, Lilith could only have reached Sequence 2. A Sequence 2 challenging a true god—that was nothing short of suicide!
Unless…she had switched to another pathway.
But the Witch's neighbouring pathway was Hunter. If she had advanced as a Hunter, she would've turned into a man. Yet at that time, she hadn't looked like a man at all…
Could it have been transformation spells?
But even if she had switched to Hunter, the Beyonder characteristic of the Conqueror was known to be in Medici's possession. She wouldn't have had a chance to advance to Red Priest anyway.
Broadly speaking, Witch's adjacent pathways also included Darkness, Twilight, and Death. But those three belonged exclusively to the Evernight Goddess. How could anyone else possibly encroach upon them?
That only left one path: ignoring neighbouring sequences and leaping straight across. But such a reckless promotion would either drive one insane—or kill them outright.
Questions flooded Edward's mind, but every answer lay buried two centuries into the future.
Yes, he was Sequence 4 now, his life span long enough to wait that out.
But those two hundred years still had to be endured, one day at a time.
"Wait…"
Edward's eyes flared, heat burning within.
"If Lilith exists in the future, then she must also exist now."
"Which means…is it possible I could find her in this era?"
Once this thought took root, Edward could no longer shake it off.
The new question became: How should he find Lilith?
If the "predecessor senior" Roselle mentioned in his diary was actually Lilith, then all Edward had to do was keep an eye on him. But then why would Lilith have gone to meet Roselle? Did she know Roselle was also a "transmigrator" and sought him out out of curiosity?
Or…did Lilith have some special purpose for coming to Intis, to Trier?
"Right…in the future she mentioned the Conqueror's Beyonder characteristic. She was looking for the Conqueror's characteristic…oh, she really planned to jump to the Hunter pathway?"
That would mean his truly soft, cute and precious daughter…would turn into a son?!
"..."
As long as she stayed alive, that was what mattered most.
It was certain Lilith had an interest in the Conqueror's characteristic, and it just so happened that beneath Trier lay one such characteristic. Could that be what drew her here?
Even so, how was he supposed to find her?
Should he deliberately expose himself so that she might come to him?
Far too dangerous.
Edward hadn't forgotten that the Primordial Demoness, Cheek, seemed to have been actively hunting for Lilith.
That meant he'd have to try another route—
The names Medici, Amon, Pallez and others flickered across his mind. Judging from the diary, Lilith had at least crossed into the early Fourth Epoch. Later she had even met Cheek, and fought her over a divine position.
With experiences like those, she could hardly have avoided encounters with the great powers of that era. Which meant Medici and the others might very well know of her, or at least of her whereabouts.
And then—there was also that fellow who claimed to know everything.
The simp-mirror, Arrodes!
But that was a Sealed Artifact belonging to the Church of the God of Steam and Machinery. Two hundred years later, it would be in the hands of the Machinery Hivemind in Backlund. Where was it now? And more importantly—how could he safely make contact with it?
Apart from Arrodes…
The only other options were those few deities who, in the future, had seemingly shown him some measure of "goodwill." But even if they truly meant well in the future, could he really trust them to be the same two centuries earlier?
Edward dared not gamble.
After all, he had just barely managed to slip out from beneath the eyes of those sly, manipulative gods—escaped their chessboard, so to speak. To now go knocking on their doors of his own accord…wasn't that just asking for trouble?
He lowered his head, pondering again.
A small silver-white cross appeared in his palm.
This was what the Russian priest had handed him before his "death." With it, Edward was technically considered a member of the Twilight Hermit Order. Every time the Order convened, the cross allowed one to project their spirit into the Corpse Cathedral to attend the gathering.
At the time, the priest had said: "It can exist."
Edward hadn't understood. What did that mean?
Now it was clear. Perhaps the Twilight Hermit Order no longer existed in the future—but in the past, it certainly did!
So what Adam had meant back then was: you can join the Order in the past.
Which meant—Edward, using the cross given to him by the priest of the future, could attend meetings of the Twilight Hermit Order in the past. There, he might even meet that very same priest, and through their acquaintance, set in motion the future decision to pass the cross back to him.
A perfect little…closed loop.
Just like the time at Hogwarts, when Dumbledore had given him the Time-Turner—another closed loop.
So in the end, everything circled back to the Russian priest after all!
Should he be surprised? After all, that being had once held the authority of omniscience and omnipotence.
But then—did the priest already sense the presence of this cross, which by all rights shouldn't exist in this era?
According to the Secrecy rules he'd summarised for acting as a Secrets Sorcerer, the priest shouldn't know.
So…should he attend the next Twilight Hermit Order meeting?
Edward leaned back in his chair, torn.
After a long while, he shook his head. No need to rush the decision. Better to think it through carefully.
As his fiery emotions cooled, a new thought came to him:
Could it be that the "predecessor" Roselle mentioned wasn't Lilith after all?
The clues were far too thin.
Maybe…Roselle had been talking about him!
After all, to Emperor Roselle, Edward too was a transmigrator "senior."
———
At the Roselle household villa.
Dinner finished, Roselle kissed his wife Matilda on the cheek before leaving the dining room.
Tonight was one of those rare evenings when he wasn't attending a ball, nor drinking himself into some noblewoman's bed. It wasn't that he had pressing business.
It was simply that: there's no barren field, only an overworked ox.
After days of debauchery, his kidneys were starting to protest.
"I've really got to get promoted to Artisan soon. That should improve my constitution quite a bit."
He picked up a cup of warm water with fruit steeped in it and gulped it down. "If only I could find some goji berries…these fruits don't do a damn thing."
"Hm…"
He rubbed his chin. "Maybe I should try that pharmacist Grimm recommended. But…mummy powder? Is that really reliable?"
Clack.
Roselle set down the cup and turned toward the door. "What's with you? You were acting all sneaky during dinner too."
At the doorway, little Bernadette—who had been peeking in—immediately puffed up and shouted, "Who's sneaky! You're the sneaky one, Daddy! I'm going to tell Mommy that you want to eat mummy powder!"
"!!!"
Damn it—what a little dagger straight to her father's heart!
Roselle quickly raised his hands: "Wait, wait! Daddy's wrong, Daddy admits it!"
Bernadette clasped her hands behind her back, chin raised. "And just what exactly are you wrong about?"
"..."
Why do women always love to ask that question?!
———
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